


got a fascination (with you)

by pinkmagnolias



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Anxiety | Virgil Sanders are Best Friends, Feelings, Fluff and Angst, Is that not a tag?, Misgendering, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, accidental and character immediately apologizes and corrects themself, also virgil: -makes very sure roman knows he cares about and supports glow-, is - Freeform, janus agrees but i mean roman IS pretty so what can you do, mostly just fluff, roman says 'i am too cool to be cis', self-deprecation, terrible ik, virgil: my friends are idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27199846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkmagnolias/pseuds/pinkmagnolias
Summary: Roman and Janus have a Tragic Past. (Roman's words) (Janus would like to know who this guy glaring at him is)
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Deceit | Janus Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders/Deceit | Janus Sanders
Comments: 7
Kudos: 34





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scriptophobia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scriptophobia/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roman is nonbinary and uses neopronouns in this fic!
> 
> if you want a little bit of background for this AU (it'll probably clear up a couple details, but you can understand this fic without reading the background), then you can find it here: https://acanvasofabillionsuns.tumblr.com/post/632832220677226496/going-to-release-a-fic-in-a-couple-days-so-have-a

“Hey, who’s that?” Roman asks, knocking Remus’s shoulder with glows and nodding towards the guy.

“Hm?” Remus turns. “Oh, I don’t know. V brought ‘em, said they wanted to try it out or something.”

“Hey, new guy, what’re your pronouns?” Roman cups glows hands around glows mouth to shout, because _Respecting People’s Pronouns_.

“He/him,” the guy calls back.

Virgil gives both of them a death glare—probably for shouting when they’re trying to sneak around, but _to be fair_ it would be _awkward_ to walk up to him solely to ask his pronouns and not his name or anything else before walking away, and glo’s not close enough to ask without shouting—so Roman yells back, “Cool!” and then flashes Virgil a wide grin and mimes zipping glows lips. Virgil rolls his eyes and pointedly turns away from glow.

Roman’s smile is even wider as glo turns back to Remus and announces, “Score one for annoyance points!”

“How high are you going for this time?”

“Double however many he gets, at least.”

Remus snorts. “Good luck.”

“Thank you!!” Roman says, ignoring the fact that Remus thinks glo will actually need it. As if.

Glo grabs a few random cans of spray paint out of the bag (which is conveniently by Virgil) and sets two of them upright on the sidewalk and one on its side between them. Glo grins at glows handiwork, then digs through the bag to find the can glo wants.

“Who took the regal red paint?” glo hisses.

“Oh, sorry, did you want it?” Virgil asks, smirking as he turns to glow. He shakes the can victoriously and whispers, “Point.”

Glo squints at him and stands up, letting glows gaze drop down to the aerosol rendition of genitalia and then looking back up at Virgil, watching as his eyes follow Roman’s and then widen and narrow in quick succession.

“Point,” glo echoes triumphantly, snatching the can and _definitely not_ running over to Remus. That would imply that glo’s running away, when Roman is simply evading any potential retaliation.

Someone snickers, and Roman looks around to see New Guy laughing. Glo hopes he can tell by the way glows eyes scrunch up that glo’s smiling at him. Judging by the way his eyes scrunch up too, he does. Glo nods at him, gets a nod back, and then goes to work.

About an hour later, Virgil’s phone beeps, and everyone packs up the supplies and gets ready to make their escape.

“Sonic?” Roman calls to the others as glo and Remus get in their car. No one protests, and so Remus pulls up a route to the nearest one as Roman gets glowself adjusted in the driver’s seat.

Five minutes later and they’ve reassembled at the picnic tables of Sonic. Everyone’s discarded their masks now that they’re unnecessary, and Roman looks around for New Guy, more than a little curious to see what he looks like under the mask and if glo recognizes him.

And once glo spots him, glo _definitely_ recognizes him.

* * *

_“I like your shirt,” someone says quickly. Roman turns around and spots a boy staring at glow. The boy nods as they make eye contact and hurries off to class._

_“Thank you!” Roman calls after him._

_Glo goes into glows next class with a smile on glows face._

* * *

_“Oh, hey, that’s the guy that complimented me earlier!” Roman tells Remus._

_“Where?” Roman points, and Remus scrunches up his nose. “Dude, that’s Janus.”_

_“So?”_

_“_ So _, he’s always sarcastic? I don’t know if he even_ can _say something straight,” Remus says. Roman’s about to joke “a fellow gay!” when Remus tells glow, “He was probably being sarcastic and making fun of you or something.”_

_Oh._

_The want to joke drains out of Roman. Glo’s sad for a moment (glo’s not really sure why), but then it flips to indignation, and glo huffs._

_“Well, jokes on him, because an insult isn’t really effective if the person you’re insulting didn’t get it,” glo scoffs._

_“Yeah, I really don’t know what he was trying to accomplish there,” Remus says, then shrugs and moves on. Roman casts one more frown at Janus before following._

* * *

“ _You_!” Someone calls. Janus turns to see someone—he recognizes him; he’d made him laugh at the start of the… get-together? He doesn’t know what to call it, and anyway he’s seen him in the halls around school a few times besides that. He thinks he has an R name?—stomping towards him.

“Me?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes!”

“What about me?”

“You complimented my shirt one time!” Is that... supposed to be a bad thing? Roger’s (?) frowning at him, so he guesses it is, though _why_ is a mystery.

“I’m sorry?” Janus tries.

“Remus said you were being sarcastic!” Robert (?) complains, throwing a finger at another dude who looks similar to this one and also more familiar. He and Janus share a class, but they’ve never really talked in it, so where he got the idea Janus would snark at someone’s shirt when he doesn’t know them, Janus doesn’t know.

He sighs. “Look, I wouldn’t waste my time insulting someone who I’ve only ever seen in passing. They wouldn’t get it, so there’d be no point.”

“Unless they have a brother who shares a class with you, and therefore can explain that you were being rude!” Ruben (?) exclaims. Janus wonders if he knows how stupid that sounds.

“Dude, I didn’t even know Remus had a brother!” Janus tells him. “And that would be a lot of effort to put into a comment that I just said in passing.”

Roy (?) downright scowls at him, crossing his arms with a huff. “Remus _doesn’t_ have a brother.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Janus says, immediately backpedaling. “Sorry.” They sniff, but their shoulders relax a little so Janus counts it as not a total mess. “Can I ask what your pronouns are?”

“Glo/glow,” glo says, and glo looks a little sheepish now. “Sorry for accusing you; I shouldn’t have judged you so harshly when I don’t even know you.”

“You shouldn’t’ve,” Janus agrees, “but I accept your apology.”

Glo smiles, uncrossing glows arms. “Do you think we could maybe start over?”

“Sure?”

Janus isn’t really sure what glo means by that, until glo sticks glows hand in his face and chirps, “I’m Roman! I use glo/glow/glows/glowself. It’s nice to meet you, Janus!”

“Nice to meet you too? Janus, he/him.”

Roman’s smile has progressed to a beam, and Janus thinks maybe he’d made a mistake somewhere along the line.

* * *

Roman weaves glows way through the crowd, looking around for Janus. Glo thinks about the situations leading up until now and winces. Glo should’ve known better than to think badly of someone glo didn’t even know! Glo’s fixing that now, though.

Glo spots Janus and makes glows way over to pop up next to him.

“Hi, Janus!”

“Hi, Roman,” Janus says, sounding slightly exasperated. And Roman knows that that’s _probably_ because glo has insisted on befriending him and that _maybe_ it would be better if glo just left him alone since it doesn’t really seem like Janus _wants_ to be befriended, but Roman is Determined to make it up to him, okay, so Janus doesn’t really get a choice in whether he’s Roman’s friend or not.

“I was wondering if you wanted to come to the next _Sonic excursion_ with us?” Roman leans in and winks a few times to make sure glows meaning gets across. “The plan’s looking like we’re gonna go on Friday right after school, but if you wanna come and can’t make it, I’m sure we can reschedule!”

Janus raises his eyebrows. “What, you’ll change the entire plan if one person, who isn’t even really part of the group yet, wants to come but can’t?”

“I mean… yeah?” Roman says. “It wouldn’t be as much fun if we knew we were excluding you when you wanted to join.”

“Huh.”

Roman waits a moment to see if he’ll say more, then prompts, “So?”

“I’ll join,” Janus says, and glo fistpumps before realizing that maybe glo’s coming off as too enthusiastic.

“Sorry,” glo tells him, rubbing the back of glows neck sheepishly.

“No need to apologize,” Janus waves glow off, squashing a smile. “Don’t you have class?”

“ _Oh, hey, I do_!” Roman realizes, pulling out glows phone and wincing at the time. “I gotta go, bye Janus!”

“Bye!” Janus calls after glow, and Roman smiles to glowself as glo races through the halls. Glo thinks glo’s got a pretty good shot at befriending Janus.

* * *

This is a disaster. Janus thinks he might actually be _friends_ with Roman. He doesn’t know how. Last he checked, Roman was still vaguely annoying, like a puppy who kept yapping at you to play when you were trying to concentrate on something else. But they didn’t have any classes together, and they didn’t often have time to talk in between periods, so Roman hadn’t been able to bother him for very long unless they hung out outside of school, which also didn’t happen often.

But then Janus had been added to the vandalism group chat, and Virgil had started pulling him into his hangouts with Roman and Remus, and now Janus has to deal with the fact that he actually _likes_ hanging out with Roman. Disgusting.

The best way to immediately deal with it is, of course, to drop his head onto his desk with the most dramatic groan he can make, so that’s what he does.

“What’s wrong?” Virgil asks, poking him.

“Help me,” Janus says, swatting at Virgil’s arm when he tries to poke him again. “I think I actually like Roman—”

“ _Duh_ ,” Virgil tells him, like the horrible, horrible friend Janus just realized he is.

“ _—‘s company_ ,” he finishes, sitting up so he can swat at Virgil from a better angle. “What do you _mean_ , _‘duh?_ ’”

“I _mean_ , it’s really obvious that you’ve got a crush on Roman and you need to actually do something about it.”

“I don’t have a crush on Roman!” Janus protests. He tries to think about how that would even work. He likes spending time with Roman, sure, and yeah, Roman’s got an objectively nice face, and it _is_ really cute to see glow light up when one of glows favorite songs come on, and— “Oh my goodness, I’ve got a crush on Roman.”

Virgil bursts into laughter. Janus is going to disown him as a friend.

“You _knew_? You knew and you didn’t tell me and you just let me make a fool of myself, probably, oh my god, _how_ big of an embarrassment have I made of myself without realizing it, Virgil, stop laughing and help me, you’re the worst—why do I have a crush on _Roman_ of all people, oh my _god_ —”

“Janus, calm down,” Virgil tells him, while still laughing, which fails to help Janus calm down in the slightest. “It’s okay, Roman’s as oblivious as you, _somehow_ , and you haven’t embarrassed yourself at all except just now. I hope you know I’m never letting you live this down.”

Janus hisses at him. Virgil bursts into laughter again, and Janus lets his head thunk back against his desk.

This is a _disaster_.

* * *

Roman is Very Excited. Janus agreed to come over and watch Monsters Inc. with glow! Well, glow and Remus and Virgil, but still!

“Dude,” Remus says, throwing something against Roman’s head that glo decidedly doesn’t look at, not wanting to know what it is. “What’s got you so excited?”

“The movie!”

Remus snickers. “You really want to be Janus’s friend, huh?”

“Yeah!” At first glo’d just wanted to be his friend to make up for misjudging him, but now that Roman’s gotten to know him, glo has even _more_ reasons to want to be his friend. Janus is clever, sharp-tongued, talented, and even though Roman now knows he’s a _dork_ who makes atrocious puns when he sees the opportunity, Janus still emanates Cool vibes. Not to mention how pretty he is, or how cute he looks when he’s snickering to himself over the terrible pun he’d just made, or— “...Wait.”

“What?”

“I don’t think I just want to be his friend,” Roman says slowly, feeling for the truth of it on glows tongue. Glo thinks about kissing Janus and, no, yeah, Roman has definitely gotten off the platonic feelings train. “Yeah, no. Dammit.”

Remus bursts into laughter.

“Remus! This isn’t funny!” Roman grabs the nearest wouldn’t-do-serious-damage object—an empty Coke can—and hurls it at him. “Stop laughing and _help me_!”

“Don’t know what you want help with, Roenby!” Remus practically sings. “I’m not the one who caught feelings!”

“I didn’t catch feelings! They hit me in the face! Just now! Stop _laughing_ at me!”

Remus is a terrible brother and _very_ lucky Roman is too busy trying to figure out how glo wants Remus to help to smack him in the face with a pillow. Roman lands on “ _Plan_. Help me think—wait, no, you’d be terrible at wooing. Nevermind!”

“ _Hey_!” 

Roman sticks out glows tongue and zooms to glows room.

“I could woo if I very well pleased!” Remus calls after glow.

“No you couldn’t!” Roman calls back, slamming glows door to ensure that glo got the last word. _Ha_.

Brother sufficiently bothered, Roman turns glows attention back to Janus, scrambling around for something to use to write. Glo finds a marker—not ideal, but there’s no time to worry about things like whether glo has the perfect writing utensil— and then digs around for something to write on. It’s only when glo’s about to scribble down ideas on an already-full page of school notes that Roman forces glowself to slow down and think. Realizing glo has a crush doesn’t suddenly put glow on a time limit, and speeding around to make a plan and start wooing Janus will likely have less-than-optimal results, as evidenced by the nearly-just-destroyed-glows-notes thing.

So, although part of glo wants to run to Janus’s house (which… glo doesn’t even know where that is) and serenade him until he either agrees to be glows boyfriend or rejects glow, Roman turns on some music, pulls out glows colored pencils and Enchanted Forest coloring book, and spends the next ten minutes tuning out everything else with the sweet tunes of Beyonce and colored pencils swishing against paper. By the time glo’s done, glo’s calmer, ready to think _through_ making a plan to woo Janus, and has a bomb-looking new page done.

As it turns out, though, making plans to woo someone is difficult. Glo comes up with ‘subtly gauge his interest’ easily enough, but _then_ what? Confessing? Straight Gay up telling Janus glo likes him? No thank you. 

Instead, glo expands upon the first part, until glo has:

Step 1 - call him pet names

Step 2 - see how he reacts to the idea of them dating

Step 3 - ???

Step 4 - profit

This is definitely a foolproof plan, glo decides. After all, by the time glo’s done the first two steps, _surely_ glo’ll have come up with what to do next!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for a mention of fratricide towards the end (none actually happens, it's just threatened, and not seriously), and possibly some secondhand embarrassment?

* * *

Step 1 - call him pet names

* * *

“What do you think, darling?” Roman turns to Janus for his opinion.

“ _Ihavetogo_ ,” Janus says in a rush, before hurrying out of the room, face bright red. 

Roman grins to glowself— _he’s flustered! Glo has a chance!_ —and turns back to Remus.

“I guess he doesn’t want to share what he thinks.”

“…What was that.”

“What was what?”

“ _‘Darling?’_ Since when do you call Janus ‘darling’?”

“ _That_ is step one of my master plan to woo Janus,” Roman informs him haughtily. “I was gauging his interest.”

“Or making him so uncomfortable he had to leave.”

“Wait, you think so?” Looking back with that perspective, that could definitely be the case. Oh _no,_ what if glo’d ruined glows chance by calling Janus a pet name when he didn’t like people calling him those? What if Janus was so agitated by it he didn’t want to be friends anymore? “ _Shoot_.”

Roman pulls out glows phone and opens glows messages with Janus. ‘dude i am so sorry, i didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. i just’

Roman looks up at Remus. “Quick, what do I tell him I did it for?”

“I don’t know, why are you asking me? You said I’d be terrible at wooing!”

“ _Remus_!”

“I don’t know! Say you do it with your friends sometimes? Or tell him the _truth_.”

“Friend thing!” Roman crows, typing ‘use pet names on my friends sometimes? but i won’t for you, sorry again’ and sending it. “Thanks, you’re a lifesaver.”

“I think the truth was the better option,” Remus tells him snobbily.

“Everyone’s a critic.”

* * *

_What was that?_ _“Darling??” Since when is Janus Roman’s darling???_

Janus buries his face in his hands, keeping enough visibility that he can actually see where he’s going. He makes his way to the nearest bathroom and plops to the floor. He’s too gay to worry about germs or whatever else because _Roman just called him darling_.

Did that mean glo likes him back? Maybe? But surely Roman knew what glo was saying when glo called him darling, and Janus doubts glo just calls crushes darling without confessing first. That sounds like it has the potential to be incredibly awkward. But maybe glo does?

Or maybe there’s some explanation Janus had just forgotten about? Or an obvious answer that he’s just completely missed?

Roman had said it so casually. “Darling.” Like it was normal. (One part of Janus’s brain whispers _what if it_ was _normal_ and Janus can _feel_ the blood rushing to his face.)

Janus’s phone dings and he pulls it out, hoping he can distract himself from the massive gay crisis he is having. No such luck, unfortunately.

‘dude i am so sorry, i didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, i just use pet names on my friends sometimes? but i won’t for you, sorry again’

Oh. It was a friend thing. Roman didn’t mean anything by it.

Janus buries his face in his hands again, this time from embarrassment, and groans. Stupid, thinking Roman calling him darling _meant_ anything. Although, who just calls their friends pet names randomly? That’s such a stupidly (endearingly) _Roman_ thing to do.

_Oh_ , he hasn’t answered Roman yet. He should do that.

Janus sits up and taps the screen so the little cursor and keyboard pop up. He thinks for a minute on how to spin his sudden departure as not very gay, then realizes Roman gave him an excuse. Wait, no, because then Roman’ll think he’s upset with glow or something because of it. Maybe he can pretend he had somewhere to be? Flimsy excuse, but he doesn’t want to leave Roman on read for longer to think of a better one and risk Roman thinking he’s mad at glow or something. The double “sorry” almost definitely means glo feels guilty for saying it.

‘it’s okay idm! I just remembered I had somewhere to be. sorry if I made you feel bad, you’re fine I promise’

Janus rereads the message a few times, changing the exclamation point into a semicolon and rearranging the last bit so it reads ‘I promise you’re fine’ before sending it. There’s a pause of a few seconds where Janus stares at his screen, then a bouncing ellipsis appears for a moment before Roman replies ‘it’s okay!! gl with your thing!!’

Janus smiles at his screen, then puts a hand over his mouth to hide it. He’s so gone on Roman.

* * *

Step 2 - see how he reacts to the idea of them dating

* * *

“Hey, Janus!” Roman calls, running up and skidding to a stop in front of him. “Hey.”

“Hi, Roman,” Janus says, smiling at glow, which glo takes as a good sign.

“I wanted to ask you something.”

“Okay?”

_Shoot,_ Roman realizes, _I am_ not _going to be able to just ask how he’d feel about going on a date with me. What do I do now?_

“Roman?” Janus does a little wave at glow. “You good?”

“Yeah!” Roman flashes him a grin.

“What’d you wanna ask me?” Janus prompts after another few moments of Roman frantically trying to make up an excuse.

“I, uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…” Screw it. “I wanted to ask if you’d want to hang out with me sometime?” Roman winces at how squeaky glows voice got by the end of it.

“I mean, sure? Why do you sound so nervous, though? We’ve done that plenty of times before.”

Roman’s shoulders climb up near glows ears. “No, I mean like? Hanging out? One on one?” There’s a pause where Janus opens his mouth to speak and Roman realizes that glo isn’t sure glo wants to know what he’s going to say, so glo rushes out, “ _Oh look at the time I’ve gotta go sorry bye see ya_!” and sprints off.

Roman runs outside, to glows car, and slides into the driver’s seat, letting glows head thunk against the top of the steering wheel. _That_ certainly could’ve gone better.

It’s only after Roman’s started driving home that glo realizes glo’s finished the first two steps, which means past-Roman was too optimistic about glo’s ideas-ability and current-Roman has no clue what glo’s going to do next. 

“Besides wait to see if he unfriends me because of how weird I was acting, I guess,” glo mutters to glowself. Janus doesn’t seem like the type to do that, but if he pieces together that Roman likes him, gets uncomfortable, and decides to distance himself from Roman because of that? …That sounds like an unfortunately realistic scenario.

Roman sighs. There’s nothing to do now but wait and see how (or _if_ ) Janus reacts.

* * *

Step 3 - ???

* * *

Janus looks at the fake potted plant across the hall from where he’s standing.

“Did that seem really weird to you too or is it just me?” he asks it, in lieu of an actual human being anywhere nearby to ask.

The plant, predictably, doesn’t reply, and Janus sighs.

He considers messaging Roman to ask what all that was about, but judging from how dodgy glo was in person, Janus doesn’t think he’s going to get a better answer through text.

_Was Roman asking you on a date?_ his traitorous brain asks, and Janus scrunches up his nose and tells it to stop seeing things that aren’t _there_. He’s not going to let himself assume and then make a fool of himself when he turns out to be wrong, weirding out Roman and potentially losing glow as a friend in the process. 

Even if Roman’s anxiety levels did seem disproportionately high, glo’d only asked if they could _hang out_. They’d only hung out in groups before! They were still in the process of being comfortable around each other! Being nervous about hanging out with a friend you aren’t very close with yet is perfectly normal! If Janus’s brain could shut _up_ about _what if glo likes you back_ and _it seemed kind of like glo might’ve been asking you on a date_ that would be great, thank you! He isn’t going to read too deeply into things and find some meaning that doesn’t actually exist, thank you very much!

…If this line of thought could stop sounding like he’s trying to convince himself of it, that would be great too, thanks.

Janus shakes his head to clear it and pulls out his phone, turning on some music to distract himself as he walks out to his car. He just needs to stop thinking about this for a bit, and then he can do something—ask Remus? Maybe? That sounds like a decent plan—about it later.

By the time Janus has driven home, the plan to ask Remus about it has solidified in his brain, so he goes inside and grabs an apple to snack on while he texts Remus.

‘hey’

‘Yooooooooo’ comes a few minutes later. Janus squints, counts the o’s, considers asking how Remus remembers the exact number of o’s he’s done each time so he can add one more every new conversation, then decides he doesn’t want to get into that.

‘has Roman been acting,, off? at all with you today?’

‘No why’

‘glo asked me if I wanted to hang out one on one then ran away before I could answer?? I was hoping you could tell me about that?’

‘SLDKJFSLDF glo DID??’

‘yes’

‘Omg this is too good,,,,, glo’s never living this down,,,,, tried to ask you out on a date and ran away before you could say yes KASNFKENFNSKFNE’

Wait. 

Date? Roman had been trying to ask him out on a date??

_Wait_.

Before he could say _yes_???

‘remus wth’

‘I can’t,,,,,,,,, as soon as glo gets home i’m gonna look at glow and burst into laughter,,,,,,, this is amazing,,,,,,’

‘remus wdym “before i could say yes”?? who’s to say that i would’ve agreed to a date??’

‘Would u have?”

‘i mean, glo asked if we could hang out. not go on a date’

‘Okay but you totally would’ve said yes either way’

Janus doesn’t respond, trying to figure out how to deny it without sounding like a complete liar. 

‘( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Your silence is condemning you fool’

‘...maybe,’ Janus finally acquiesces. ‘i admit to nothing.’ Then, because Janus is still very confused about this, ‘roman was trying to ask me out??’ Remus has been annoyingly unhelpful about answering that so far.

‘Kakandfdfas yeah’

‘i see’

‘Jdgsfskdfsdsjsjjsdj what’s that supposed to mean’

Janus leaves him on read, already plotting how to use this information to his advantage (and a little bit to spite him. Just because he can).

* * *

“Virgil,” Roman groans. “I’m an idiot.”

“Yeah.”

“And Remus won’t stop laughing at me about it, thus forcing me— _what do you mean_ _‘yeah?’_ You’re supposed to be supporting me! I— _you don’t even know what I’m complaining about yet!_ ”

Virgil rolls his eyes. “Don’t need to know what you did to know you’re an idiot.” 

Roman scoffs offendedly. The _disrespect_! And after glo is trusting him enough to open up about glows problems!

“I don’t have to take this!”

“But you will.”

Roman hums, conflicted. Usually, glo would take Virgil’s mocking, giving just as good as glo got, but glo doesn’t really feel good enough about glowself at the moment. After embarrassing glowself in front of Janus, Roman’s ego is at an all time low, and Virgil isn’t helping.

Virgil pokes glow. “If it’s bothering you I can stop.”

“Tone it back a bit?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Thanks.”

“‘Course.” Virgil pokes glow again and Roman bats at his hand, but glo’s smiling now. “What’d you do this time, princex?”

Roman sighs and puts a hand to glows forehead dramatically, slumping back in glows seat. “It’s tragic! I’ve been humiliated and can no longer show my face around school.”

“I’m heartbroken,” Virgil deadpans. “What happened?”

“I asked—” Roman falters. This sounds… stupid. Glo asked Janus a question and then ran away before he could answer? Virgil’s probably going to laugh at glow. _Roman_ would probably laugh if the situation was reversed. “You know what, nevermind.”

“No, what is it?” Virgil presses, smirking, but he drops it when he notices Roman’s expression. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, I just... don’t really want to talk about this anymore,” Roman says, putting an elbow on the table so glo can cover glows mouth with glows hand as glo looks over at the wall.

“Okay,” Virgil agrees. “Is this ‘I’m scared of being vulnerable’ don’t want to talk or something else? Because if it’s the first thing then I promise not to laugh at you or judge you or anything.”

Roman wrinkles glows nose, considering. Still staring at the wall, glo says, “I was going to ask Janus out on a date, but I chickened out and asked him how he’d feel about ‘hanging out one on one’ or something stupid, and then chickened out _again_ and ran away before he could answer. And now I think he’s probably figured out I like him and he’ll probably stop being friends with me because now it’s _weird_. So.” Glo gives a short, self-deprecating laugh. “Anyway, how’re you doing?”

“I’m fine,” Virgil says lightly after a moment. “My best friend was scared to tell me something, but glo opened up anyway, so I’m proud of glow and happy glo was comfortable enough to share that with me. And despite how anxious glo is about the situation, I think it’s gonna work out for glow.”

Roman looks over at him, asking softly, “I’m your best friend?” Glo’d figured, kind of, but it was the first time either of them had said it to each other.

“I mean, one of, but yeah. I don’t annoy just anyone; my anxiety’s way too high for that.”

“And your standards,” Roman jokes, pointing glows nose in the air.

“And my standards,” Virgil agrees, grinning.

“Well, I _suppose_ , then, that I could concede that you’re my best friend too, and that I appreciate you saying all that,” Roman says primly, making eye contact with Virgil for a moment and smiling before glancing away nervously. “Do you really think it’ll work out?”

“Oh, yeah,” Virgil says, with much more confidence than Roman thinks he maybe should have. “Definitely.”

Roman squints. “I’m trusting you.”

“As you should.” Virgil sticks his nose up in the air in what Roman is certain is a mockery of glow earlier, and so of course glo reaches over and shoves him, laughing at the indignant squawk Virgil makes. From there it devolves into them hitting at each other, not hard enough to really hurt, and laughing so hard that for a while Roman forgets about Janus.

* * *

Step 4 - profit

* * *

“Hey, Roman,” Janus calls, walking the last few steps over to glow. He wonders briefly if the roses are too much, but Roman’s already turned to look at him so he guesses it’s too late to try to subtly get rid of them or something.

Roman’s face does a thing, where it sort of… spasms? Just for a second, but it’s almost like a flash of fear before Roman’s grinning at him and Janus wonders if he’d imagined it.

“Hi, Janus!” glo chirps. “Whatcha got there?” Glo leans over to the side, trying to look behind Janus’s back.

“A gift,” he tells glow, “to, uh, try to— actually, yeah. Just a gift. For you.” Janus mentally facepalms. Remus _said_ Roman likes him; he shouldn’t be so nervous about this!

“For me?” Roman’s eyebrows raise. “What’re you trying to do?”

“Um.” Janus gathers all his courage, pulling the roses out from behind his back and shoving them towards Roman as he says, “Ask you on a date?” It comes out sounding more like a question than he’d intended, and he squeezes his eyes shut, bracing.

Nothing happens, and after a few moments he opens one eye to peer nervously at Roman, who’s sitting there slack-jawed.

“Roman?” Janus asks, straightening up and letting his arms relax.

There’s a squeak.

“Are you okay?”

There’s another squeak, a lot of sputtering, and then finally glo echoes, “Date?”

“If you want to go on one?” Janus offers.

“You want to go on a date… with me?” Roman’s gaze is flickering between staring at the roses and looking up at him in bewilderment.

“I—yes?” This isn’t how Janus envisioned this going. “I like you romantically, you like me romantically, we go on a date and maybe more if we both enjoy ourselves? Does that sound right?”

Roman’s face, which had been steadily growing pinker as the conversation continued, now flames bright red, and glo buries glows face in glows hands.

“Who told you I like you?”

“Remus.”

“I’m going to kill him.” Janus can see Roman take a deep breath, shoulders rising and falling, and then glo looks up at him, face still fairly pink. “And then I’m going to go on a date with you, provided this isn’t your version of a joke or something, and then if it goes well then maybe I’ll resurrect him.”

“Sounds lovely.” Janus grins. “Maybe leave the fratricide until after the date so you don’t have to go through all the work of bringing him back to life?”

“Sure.”

Lacking any response, Janus holds the flowers back out to Roman. Glo takes them gingerly, tracing the edge of a petal and rubbing another one between glows fingers, lifting it up to sniff it and admiring the bouquet. Janus watches glow, a small smile creeping on his face at how enraptured Roman is by the flowers.

After a minute or two, Roman looks back up at him.

“Thank you,” glo says, hiding the bottom half of glows face behind the roses. “No one’s ever bought me flowers before; they’re beautiful.”

“Just like you,” Janus says before his brain can do any silly little things like consider the consequences and Not say stupidly sappy stuff. Roman’s face ducks further under the flowers, and Janus thinks he hears a squeak.

“Thank you,” glo repeats.

“You’re quite welcome, dear.” Janus tacks the pet name on ~~as revenge for how flustered he’d been when Roman called him darling~~ on impulse, curious to see how Roman reacts. Which is, apparently, to squeak more loudly and actually pull glows face up from the bouquet enough to glare weakly at him.

“Stoooooop,” glo complains. “I retract my agreement to date you.”

“Well, in that case, let me retract my roses.”

“No, they’re mine.” Roman clutches them closer against glows chest.

“Alright, then pay for them.”

Roman squints at him. “What’s the payment?”

Janus reaches out, gesturing towards glows hand. Roman stretches it out towards him slowly, watching for what he’s going to do. Janus takes it carefully, bending over it and looking up through his eyelashes at Roman.

“Is this okay?”

Roman nods, blushing, and Janus kisses glows hand, straightening up and smirking at glow. (And if he doesn’t release Roman’s hand, it’s surely just an oversight on his part.)

“Payment.”

“This is _unfair_ ,” Roman complains. “I had this whole plan to try and woo you and now you’re being mean _and_ you stole my idea.”

“Well,” Janus says, squeezing glows hand a little. “I’d say your plan worked pretty well.”

Roman looks at their joined hands and squeezes back, then smiles up at Janus. 

“Yeah, I’d say so too.”


End file.
